But here we are, to Kolb’s return after more than a month away from a game, with Ware – the NFL’s sack leader — set to face left tackle Levi Brown, who has played better of late, especially when the Cards have run the ball. How will it all wash out? The Cowboys are playing well, but they aren’t the Packers or even the Saints. And the Cards will be at home. Yes, I expect a good amount of Dallas fans. But not the majority.

Kolb seems like he has regained some confidence with this time away. I think it actually may have helped him, as was speculated by many it could. If the Cards can keep Beanie churning away, I think the offense can be OK.

— On the other side of the ball, there is also intrigue. Kolb hasn’t played with this version of the defense yet. Not with Sam Acho coming along and the scheme under control. The Eagles’ offense was actually playing pretty well at the point the Cards got to it and the Cardinals came out pretty good in that game. You’d hope they could do the same against the Cowboys, and turn the QB into the “bad” Tony Romo he can be sometimes.

— Completely unrealistic to think Beanie Wells will break out for another 200 yards. But I don’t think 100 is an unfair goal. The Cowboys do have a good run defense (10th in the league) but the Cards believe they have found a ground game.

“It was the commitment to the run game (last week),” fullback Anthony Sherman said. “Even if we didn’t get much we kept going to the same style of run plays and it worked.”

— Interesting take on Patrick Peterson’s progress as a cornerback from defensive coordinator Ray Horton. Horton reiterated that he thinks, eventually, Peterson will get respect from the officials despite being physical. He said Peterson is “right on pace” to develop as a corner.

Then he talked about what, in his view, was Peterson’s biggest problem early in the season.

“He assumed, if he had good coverage, they wouldn’t throw the ball at him,” Horton said. “You remember, Carolina, they threw the touchdown pass. He just stopped. Against the Giants, the same thing. Now he understands, ‘Just because I’m Patrick Peterson, they’ll still throw the ball at me.’ ”

— These are the games where Darnell Dockett really seems to pop. He had a very good game last week against the Rams – no sacks, but incredibly disruptive – and said it was simply because the game plan “gave me more opportunities.”

“They put a lot more on the D-line,” Dockett said, although he bristled just a bit at the idea he was playing harder. “Every time I step on the field, I’m going 110 miles an hour.”

— Safety Kerry Rhodes, out since the Vikings game Oct. 9 with his broken foot, got back out on the practice field Friday. I’d think he would still be at least a couple games away, but we will see how he does with his recovery.

— Over the last four games, the Cardinals have forced the opposition to punt 25 times. Only Atlanta (26) has forced more punts.

— Fans voted Beanie the “FedEx Ground player of the week” this week after his 228-yard game.

— There are going to be new security procedures for those coming to the games going forward, with handheld metal detectors instead of a patdown. Not every entry point will use this as of yet, but click here for all the details.

— Fitz needs 112 yards receiving to reach 1,000. For some reason, I think he gets it Sunday.

realistically beanie wells, and fitz can both get 1,000 yards sunday if they have good games, not too far out, beanie needs about 120ish 130ish yards to hit 1000 yards, been a while since we had a 1k rusher here in az, maybe beanie gets 1200 this season, would be nice.

Sounds like Cardinal fans should thank Jerry Jones for Univ. of Phoenix Stadium since he wrote a referendum to the AZ voters(Cowboy fans in AZ) to get the stadium. Jerry Jones said the stadium has been 50% blue/Cowboy fans. I doubt anything will be different this year. Fitz had only 1 catch against the Cowboys last year, Roberts had 5 with Johnny S. throwing. Of course this year it sounds like we’ll have turf toe Kolb ( 1 ~ 6 ) throwing and being chased by a defense with the 3rd most sacks in the NFL. Imagine that!
Cowboys Scout Henry Stroka in film room ~ Film Session: Patrick Peterson…http://www.dallascowboys.com/multimedia/multimedia_center.cfm?id=00ECC2C9-D841-95D0-3C9037E7FB55809B
Don’t expect the Cowboys to overrun or have poor technique on punts. But if they do that’ll be great, Go Patrick Peterson! Hey Darren, why don’t our scouts show us anything?

i look forward to the tight ends getting alot of work done. we need to get pressure off kold so he can adjust to game time speed with Ware looking for a sitting duck with a bad foot quick strikes . run with wells get the ball to 85 on the slot slants and couple of deep balls to roberts and the set fitz on the 4th quarter to have a kill shot to cowgirls. things to see A DUB on wiitten how he does . take the run game out of the boys and make him beat you with his arm they have alot of speed on the outside hope adams is on par with the dime. GO RED BIRDS!!!!!!!!!

Housler(Rob) is looking like a bust along with Williams. When you consider he has had a perfect chance to perform(Heap etc… out of action for so long), he doesn’t seem to be quick healer that’s for sure. Don’t old guys(Heap) heal quicker than Housler?

Darren – any chance this game gets moved to Sunday night? That would be pretty cool.

Not related to this game, but I would like to ask if any of the folks who were clamoring for Vince Young to be our QB have now seen the light on this issue? Straight to the point, VY stinks. And that fact was loud and clear and on display during that Thurs night game against Philly. Again, he sucks. He is terrible. Spare me his winning record during his career with Tennessee. Consider instead the FACT that the Titans wanted NOTHING more to do with him and that no one else really did, either, until the Eagles took a flier on him. News flash – when that is happening with a QB who has a career winning record, THERE IS A REASON FOR IT!!! The Titans knew what they were doing. So did all the teams who steered clear.

Part of what made VY special at one point was his ability to make big plays by running the ball. Well, if the Thurs night game was any indication, that part of his game is just plain GONE. He looked about as mobile as Kurt Warner. And with that part of his game gone, there is nothing left but a guy who is barely back-up QB material at this point. BARELY!!!

As critical as I have been for personnel moves made or not made during the past two seasons, I absolutely applaud the Cardinals for 2 huge mistakes they did NOT make – their names are Donovan McNabb and Vince Young.

this team shows just enough to keep me hoping. i am loving the defense and have pretty much all year. i think horton is wrong to keep harping on the fact that someday peterson will get respect and therfor should continue to put his hands on people. that is just silly, play by the rules and you wont get flagged.

the games we lost could have gone either way with the exception of 1. this team is better than it was, but barring a miracle the only thing we have to play for is next year, which is a terrible place for fans. well next year and beating the freaking cowgirls. come on guys this is our play offs, the only team we seem to own consistently lately is the cowboys, put your big boy pants on and stomp these cowpokes.

@brad o’neill – I generally like your positive attitude but this post is a little over the top saying that 6 of our 7 losses could have gone either way. I agree that the losses to Washington, Baltimore, Giants and perhaps Seattle could have gone either way although our offence outright stunk in Seattle. I don’t see how we could have beaten the Steelers, 49ers, and Vikings without playing hugely better on those days.

Thanks. Didn’t realize those decisions were made two weeks in advance. But now that ya point that out, it makes sense. AND I just realized that the schedule I was looking at doesn’t even list the Pats / Colts game! Weird. Man, Manning’s injury totally destroyed a peach of a game for the NFL and the networks. I’ll bet at this point, most people would probably rather see another game that promises to be more competetive than that one.

Darren reading that SD is definitely going to fire Norv Turner as head coach.

Do you think there is any chance that we would pounce and I do mean pounce on him to be our OC and QB coach? I think he is a very good OC and I think he works great with QBs so of course I want this move very much for our Cardinals?

Last year I wanted the same for our defense with Wade Phillips, but we did not touch him and he could earn DC of the year with the work he has done with Houston.

As always I thank you for your time in reading my questions and for all of the great articles you write.

Must admit that I am worried about this game as the last time I was excited for a game was the 49ers game and we were just beat down in that game. Definitely will watch and hope that our team plays well especially Kevin Kolb. Go Cards beat the Cowboys.

To those who bash cardsalltheway, let me say that he speaks for many Cards fans.
It is PAINFUL to watch the Cards of the last two years and many more years before 2007.
It is difficult to be POSITIVE when one sees the Cards draft and sign FA players who can’t “git er done”.
Those who view everything through rose colored glasses aren’t realists.
SHOW ME THE RESULTS!!!

All you Cardinals fans think Kolb has been bad for 7 games (1-6) no thats not correct, he did play well in 3 games (1 win, 2 losses) while Skelton played well in 1 game and just horrible in his last 2.

KOLB REALLY HAS TO GO NOW , IT WILL BE THE WORST SHOWING YET BY HIM SUNDAY AGAINST THE COWBOYS, THEY SHOULD ALSO FIRED WIZ, HE JUST KNOW QB’S. WE ALL KNEW THE COWBOYS WOULD KILLED THEM , COACH STILL THINKS KOLB IS THE ANSWER.
THEY SHOULD MOVE ON TOGETHER AND THEY CAN ALSO TAKE RUSS GRIMM WITH THEM.

Peter in Canada- i completely understand where you are coming from and i think you are probably right. min was the only game that i never felt we had a chance in which is sick because they are a terrible team. i think the breaks kind of stacked up against us in a few other games like san francisco even though our team felt beat up, fans felt beat up i didn’t feel they were dominating us so much as a few things went wrong and we couldn’t over come them.

but you are correct saying we were in all the games but one was a bit rosey. ha ha ha.

Chuck1,
At least there’s somebody here with an open mind. I hope the Cardinals win and have had confidence as of late, but with Kolb I don’t feel it. Of course that’s based on what I remember(nightmares) earlier this season. What we have in Johnny S. is a Tebow and a winning team the past month. I guess some others here would rather our team be losers behind Kolb. Lest not forget, we got and paid Kolb to produce NOW because he had experience(cough cough ~ only a few more games than Johnny S.) but he failed to get us to a better record than 1-6. Johnny S. and/or Richard Bartel could’ve done what Kolb did the first 7 games for a lot LESS $$$, but I guess paying 20+ million, a 2nd round draft pick, and DRC to Andy Reid the swindler had to be done given who got swindled. It’s not often QB’s(i.e. Johnny S.) get benched immediately after a win and a record of 3-1, but if you’re going to replace the man it should be Richard Bartel NOT Kolb.

Key to victory(other than Kolb and J. Feely)…
TE’s ~ We haven’t had a touchdown for 10 weeks(2nd game of the season).
So far this year our TE’s have 2 TD’s(only Jeff King). We pay our TE’s about $5 million, they’ve caught 42 passes = 464 yards.

Wasn’t the plan to improve our TE play/performance/output this year? I guess we already did improve from our total 25 receptions and 1 TD from last year. I suppose we should just stop throwing to them now since we’ve done so well aye? Job well done TE’s !

Cards 62, I like your thinking, and no offense Horton, Phillips would have been awesome. Its become clear Whiz and Graves will only hire people with little or no experience. Ego? One more reason for BOTH TO GO.

I’ve got to comment on Cardsalltheway, WOW, I think the guys are right about the doctor visit. This is supposed to be FUN. I understand this year sucks, and there need to be changes, but come on man, the players have really picked it up here lately. Lets focus on the positives, because if we beat the Cow Girls, nothing else will matter this year except Santa bringing us a New GM (Jeff Fisher), Coach (?), OC (Norv Turner), FA R and L Tackles. Oh, and for the draft wish list Santa can you bring us OSU WR Blackmon (sorry, still indesperate need of a number two for Fitz) mixed with some LB’s, SS, and OL’s? We are already way behind SF, Seatle is a few players away from being better than us, and the Rams, well, at least we will never finish last in the division.

” Let’s be perfectly clear, Arizona stinks on offense. …Garrett’s primary task today is to make sure Patrick Peterson doesn’t impact the game because that’s the ONLY way Arizona can win…” this is what the cowgirls are sayin…i hope they have these quotes posted up in the Card’s locker room. beanie is going to RUN thru the ‘boys and Fitz will reach his 1000 yds + today! BLEEEEEED RED!

Darren,
Lyle Sendlein was forced to be wired up earlier this season and severely dislike the idea. (Is he still wearing the mike?)
So the NFL can demand a player wear a microphone, but a team can just request?

Eric said: …..”Lets focus on the positives, because if we beat the Cow Girls, nothing else will matter this year except Santa bringing us a New GM (Jeff Fisher), Coach (?), OC (Norv Turner), FA R and L Tackles. Oh, and for the draft wish list Santa can you bring us OSU WR Blackmon (sorry, still indesperate need of a number two for Fitz) mixed with some LB’s, SS, and OL’s? We are already way behind SF, Seatle is a few players away from being better than us, and the Rams, well, at least we will never finish last in the division.”

You say that we should “focus on the positive”, then ask Santa to vastly change the front office and roster. HUH???

Apparently, there are a lot of NEGATIVES to offset the “POSITIVES”.

I, and many Cards fans desperately want to be positive about the team; however, the Bidwills, Graves, Keim, the Scouting Staff, Whiz, his coaches e.g. QB coach, OC, and OLine coach and some players (see Levi Brown, Porter, Haggans etc.) make it extremely difficult.

It is not impossible that the Cards will finish with the same record as last year. When will it turn around?

Also, for those fans who say “the Cards could be 7-4 IF this or that would have happened, it reminds me of what my Dad used to say: “IF THE DOG WOULDN’T HAVE STOPPED TO XXXX (read go to the bathroom), HE’D HAVE CAUGHT THE RABBIT”.

Eric – You are right. Blogging is supposed to fun but don’t forget there are lots of people out there with something missing in their lives. They get their jollies from demanding people lose their jobs, hoping certain players get injured and insulting other people’s intelligence. Darren is providing a public service by letting them ait their views also.

Darren, if you have any influence with the Cardinals tell them they need more security entry points to get into the stadium. They’ve had this problem from the very first day they opened the stadium. They have so few security entry points that they all clog up. It got better last year when the Cards put “expediters” at each checkpoint to speed up the lines, but this wanding that they are going to use is going to bring everything to a standstill. With all of the fencing around the perimeter of the stadium, there is plenty of room to add more security entry points.